Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Fair’s Sagging Turnout Tied to Economy : Antelope Valley: The number of paying visitors dropped 9% this year. Officials hope attendance will pick up for the closing holiday weekend.

The blame certainly can’t be pegged on the entertainment lineup--they’ve offered everything from a prune-spitting contest to a Reba McEntire concert. Something for everyone.

And the prices may have gone up, but it’s still probably one of the best deals in town at $5 for adults and $3 for the young and old. How many places can you see Alaskan pigs race?

As is happening so often these days, fingers are being pointed at the economy.

It’s the only explanation Antelope Valley Fair General Manager Bruce Latta can offer to justify the less-than-hoped-for attendance figures at this year’s fair, which wraps up at midnight Monday after an 11-day run.

“The economy is coming home to roost,” Latta said, adding that he remains optimistic that the last few days of the fair will draw record numbers of people and help boost the otherwise sagging attendance count.

Through Thursday, the most current figures available, the fair had attracted about 82,000 paying visitors, a 9% drop compared to the first seven days of the 1992 fair. Overall attendance shows a much more dramatic drop, with about 147,000 people coming through the fair gates so far this year compared to more than 183,000 in the first seven days of the 1992 event. Free admission is offered to performers, media, guests of the board of director and others.

That nearly 20% total attendance decline, however, is less important to Latta, who took over the Antelope Valley Fair’s manager post earlier this year. Total attendance figures include everyone who enters the fairgrounds--performers, concessionaires, even Latta himself. He believes one reason for the drop may be that more accurate counts are being made this year.

Admission ticket sales represent a significant revenue source for the Antelope Valley Fair and Alfalfa Festival, which Latta said has been losing money for several years running. Typically, only about half of Antelope Valley Fair attendees pay to enter. Latta said that has to change. It is hoped more people will attend the fair and fewer should be admitted free, he said. At least 80% of fair patrons ought to be paying the admission fee.

Latta was unwilling Friday to predict how much money the 1993 fair would lose, or even to state that it would run in the red. A loss is practically inevitable unless the Labor Day weekend draws huge crowds to the 80-acre fairgrounds.

The $1 admission price increase this year will help increase the gate revenue despite the lower attendance, Latta said, but fewer people at the fair means less being spent on food, drinks, games and souvenirs.

Antelope Valley Fair officials said what is happening here is the same as what has been happening this summer at fairs throughout California--attendance is down an average of 6%, according to the California Fair Services Authority, a Sacramento-based nonprofit agency serving the 80 fairs held in the state each year. Total paid attendance as of Aug. 27 at 46 California fairs amounted to nearly 4.4 million, a combined decline of 300,000 at those same fairs compared to 1992.

“The only thing we have in common with all the other fairs is we’re all in the state of California,” said fair spokeswoman Sheila Burnette. “The California economy is not good.”

A poor economy or not, Latta said fairs are going through a “renaissance” to find their place in the 21st Century. Some fairs will not survive, a key to which is self-sufficiency.

“Fairs have kind of lost their way and they’ve become too commercial,” he said, adding that a fair is a chance for a community to showcase itself.

The Antelope Valley Fair has been able to keep from running a deficit because its Watch-and-Wager operation, where people can watch and bet on horse racing from such tracks as Del Mar and Hollywood Park, has been quite successful. Other smaller events during the year at the fairgrounds help to generate some money and Latta said there will be more of those off-season events.

“This fair needs to stand on its own feet,” Latta said.